Comparative adjectives express a higher degree of a particular quality, whereas superlative adjectives express the highest degree. In order to create comparative adjectives in English, we add "-er" to the end of shorter adjectives (such as "cheaper") or add “more” in front of longer adjectives (“more expensive”). In German, -er is added to all adjectives regardless of how many syllables they have. Mehr is never used for this purpose.

Superlative adjectives in English either have "-est" at the end or are preceded by the adjective “most” ("cheapest," "the most expensive"). In German, the suffix -ste or -sten is used, depending on the declension. Take note: Putting meist in front of an adjective will give it a fully different meaning (similar to "mostly").

Further Learning When you learn a new adjective on Yabla German, take a moment to learn its comparative and superlative forms. Keep in mind that there are irregular forms where a slight spelling change (such as an umlaut) is required. Take a look at this table for some examples.

The alternate title to this week's lesson could be taken from Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing, in that we'll be kept busy discussing the ways that Germans pronounce the word nichts, which means—well there you have it—"nothing":

The word nichts is sometimes mispronounced by non-native German speakers as "nix," whereas the proper pronunciation requires that difficult soft back-of-the-mouth "ch" sound that lies somewhere between "k" and "sh." Click here (courtesy of Duden) to hear nichts pronounced correctly.

But while some non-Germans may not get the proper register for the word, you'll find many native Germans regularly pronouncing nichts as nix! That's because nix is common as a slang pronunciation of nichts. Unlike the soft -ch sound in nichts, this is pronounced as it is written with the X, and rhymes with the English words "ticks" and "bricks":

This leaves us, of course, with nüscht, which also means "nothing," but does so with a distinctly Berliner accent. The Duden dictionary classifies nüscht as Berlin and Northeast German slang.

A good example of nüscht—or in this case, the variant nüschts—is found in a German-overdubbed version of the 1993 comedy film Loaded Weapon. Two cops, played by Samuel L. Jackson and Emilio Estevez, enter a hotel room occupied by a criminal, played by Jon Lovitz, who has just emptied a machine gun at them through the hotel door:

The German script was adapted from the American, which had Jon Lovitz saying "nothin'" and getting a grammar lecture from Samuel L. Jackson about the word "nothing" having a G on the end.

Further Learning Read the Wikipedia article on Berlin dialect, it could prove useful the next time you visit Berlin to help get your head around some of the different pronunciations found here. You can also read up more on the topic here. As an ending note, the German title of the Shakespeare play is Viel Lärm um nichts. How would you translate that directly?

This week, we're going to take a look at a few nouns that are automatically plural in English but singular in German. It is important for English speakers to take note of these before the wrong conjugation gets used, or an article gets left out.

A classic example of this is die Brille, which unlike its English translation "the glasses" is singular in German:

The simplest straightforward translation of the idiom kein Schwein is thus "no-one."

Further LearningKein Schwein should be misunderstanding German idioms: Go to Yabla German and watch the Eva erklärt Sprichwörterseries and find other examples of these expressions in different contexts. Later in the month we will be bringing you some more examples of idioms from this Yabla series!

From knowing that the adjective halb, seen here as halber, means "half," you might make a mistake when you see a word of the same spelling in some other contexts:

Der Ordnung halber...

When you find a noun in the genitive case followed by halber, this is the preposition halber and means "for the sake of..." The above could be translated as "for the sake of orderliness" or "for the sake of clarity." Here are few other examples:

Der Einfachheit halber = for the sake of simplicityDer Transparenz halber = for the sake of transparencyDer Vollständigkeit halber = for the sake of completenessDer Datenqualität halber = for the sake of data qualityDer Ehrlichkeit halber = for the sake of honesty

In some cases, the use of the adjective halber became so common that it fused with a noun to become an adjectival suffix, or the ending of an adjective. The meaning that the suffix -halber lends a word is usually the same as the adjective:

But sometimes it can have a slightly different meaning as the cause of something rather than for the sake of something:

krankheitshalber = because of illnessumständehalber = due to circumstances

Further Learning Go to the German Duden dictionary and read the definitions of the adjective halber and the adjectival suffix halber. See if you can translate the title of this lesson to proper German, too! (Hint: it will use the genitive case of das Deutschlernen.)

This year, it has been an unusually warm fall in Germany. Even in early October, there were some days in the high 60s (Fahrenheit, between 17 and 21 degrees celsius). However, there have been some very chilly, windy days recently, and Germans have finally had to get out their winter clothing to be prepared for lower temperatures.

Let’s go from head to toe and take a look at what items you need to brave the German winter.

There are two words for “the hat” in German, but only one of them is associated with the wool knit caps that are worn in the cold months.

Of course, a warm coat (der Mantel) or a jacket (die Jacke) is essential to any winter outfit. There are many options depending on the weather conditions. You can likely recognize the words der Wollmantel, der Daunenmantel, die Daunenjacke, or die Regenjacke without our help!

Der Handschuh is the singular form, but unless you've lost one, generally the plural for of "the gloves" is what you will use. Here, compound nouns also abound: such as die Strickhandschuhe, die Fleece-Handschuhe, die Lederhandschuhe, among others.

Some of the most practical German words that you can use immediately upon arrival in a German-speaking country (don't forget that German is spoken in Austria and Switzerland too!) are related to ordering food. When you first enter a restaurant, the waitstaff may invite you to take a seat:

While studying German, you have probably confronted both sitzen and setzen. Generally, the verb sitzen is quite straightforward in simply meaning "to sit," or more specifically "to be sitting." The reflexive verbsich setzen is also translated as "to sit" but refers to the action of sitting down (there is also the verb sich hinsetzen which can be more or less a synonym).

Setzen is also the root of a multitude of verbs. Take a look at the following examples with einsetzen ("to use," "to implement"), absetzen (which is used in many contexts, from "to deduct" something for your taxes to "to remove" a pair of glasses), and besetzen ("to occupy").

Further Learning Here is a list of verbs with setzen as their root for your perusal. Look for examples of some of these verbs, such as aufsetzen, durchsetzen, or umsetzen, on Yabla German. Try to searching for their participles as well!

Unlike waitresses and waiters in restaurants in the United States, who often legally receive a wage well under standard minimum wage, but make up the difference through tips they receive from customers, waitstaff and bartenders in Germany usually receive at least standard minimum wage. In some cases, German waitstaff also earn a small percentage of their food and drink sales, regardless of the tips they receive from customers.

Perhaps it is for this reason that many German tourists, unaccustomed to tipping very much in restaurants and bars at home, often find it difficult to pay the standard 15 to 25 percent tip when visiting the United States. Germans often don't seem to understand that unlike in Germany, US waitstaff make their living primarily from tips, and merely rounding up the bill to the next dollar or fifty cents is not going to help them pay their rent.

The situation is so bad that in very expensive cities like New York, some waiters are reluctant to serve German tourists when they come into the restaurant, knowing from past experience that they may not earn any tip money from them. Since waiters are often taxed on the presumption of a 15 to 25 percent tip, they might even lose money if a table does not tip them.

Let's turn the tables for a moment, though, with apologies for the pun. As an American in Germany, you will find most waitstaff extremely gracious when you give them a decent tip. You are not really expected to tip beyond a few euros, however, though I always tip 10% percent when the service is at least acceptable.

But what do you say when you wish to leave a tip? Best not to leave der Tipp, as that does not mean "tip" in the sense of tipping the waitstaff, but rather "tip" in the sense of a hint or advice, like a "hot tip for the racetrack." The correct German word is das Trinkgeld, literally "the drink money." There are several more subtle ways to tell waitstaff that the money you are giving them is for a tip than to use the word Trinkgeld, however.

When Lisa says "das stimmt so" in the video above, she more or less means "keep the change," meaning the restaurant can keep as a tip the amount of money she gave them above the actual amount of the bill. However, if Lisa had handed them a 50 euro bill but only wanted to tip them 4 euros and 50 cents (for a total of 45 euros), then she could have stated the total amount she wanted them to keep and simply said "45 Euro, bitte."

So if you are paying at a cafe in Germany and the total for your coffee and cake is 9 euros and 20 cents, you could hand the waitstaff a 10 euro bill and say "das stimmt so," or you could hand them a 20 euro bill and say "10 Euro, bitte" to let them know that they can keep the amount over the bill up to 10 euros.

Additionally, you should be very careful with your use of the word danke when handing over cash: this will often be interpreted the same as das stimmt so. Don't be too surprised then if you thought you were merely being polite, but then the waiter doesn't return with your change!

In German, two verbs can be translated as "to live." Generally, students of German are taught that wohnen relates to more temporary living situations, and leben to more permanent living situations. This may seem highly subjective, and it is! Although there are sentences where only one option is correct, there are certainly sentences in which the speaker chooses a verb dependent on their perspective on the situation.

We notice here that Judith talks about her apartment being in Kreuzberg with the verb wohnen and her life in Berlin with the verb leben. Wohnen is often used to talk about domesticity, such as inhabiting an apartment or a house. German philosopher Martin Heidegger is well-known for his text Bauen, Wohnen, Denken, which is translated as "Building, dwelling, thinking" in English. Ikea in Germany has for many years had the slogan Wohnst du noch oder lebst du schon? which highlights that occupying or sleeping in a space does not necessarily mean that you are really at home there. In German, the phrase Hast du dich eingelebt? means "Have you settled in?" also reflecting that leben has a deeper sense of permanence than simply dwelling or residing.

In this sentence, Brigitta uses wohnen to express that she is staying with friends, which is obviously a temporary situation:

In this next sentence, it would be possible to say Ich wohne allein, but this would highlight the domestic aspect of living by oneself in an apartment or house, rather than describing a way of life. A person might also say Ich lebe gesund, for example.

Further Learning There are many examples of leben and wohnen on Yabla German. Think about your own life and which verb you would use to describe various places you have lived, or your current life and lifestyle.

It is sometimes easy to be misled by German adverbs, which may not be quite what they appear at first glance. Take the adverb bislang: if you break it into its constituent parts bis ("until") and lang ("long"), you might conclude it means "for a long time"—but you would unfortunately be wrong.

There are, however, a number of other expressions in German that mean "for a long time":

Im Jahr 1953 gab es in der DDR einen Aufstand, an den lange Zeit in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ein Feiertag erinnerte. There was an uprising in the GDR in 1953, which a holiday has memorialized for a long time in the Federal Republic of Germany. Captions 22-23, Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Einbürgerungstest

In both English and German, there are tenses and there are moods. We use the indicative mood to state facts, the imperative mood to give commands, and the subjunctive mood to reflect wishes or actions in unreal situations ("I wish I were taller" or "I would travel around the world."). Take a look at this past newsletter for information on the formation of the subjunctive (Konjunktiv) in German. The subjunctive is a key part of conditional sentences that describe levels of possibility, from events that are very likely to missed opportunities in the past.

Type 1 conditional sentences refer to cause-and-effect links, and events that are quite certain under particular circumstances. Because German sentences often use the present tense to imply the future,the basic structure is wenn or falls (see this newsletter)followed by the present tense, like in English, but then it can be followed by either the present tense or future constructed with werden.

Type 3 conditional sentences are used to talk about possibilities or events that never came to be. Here is where the structure gets a bit complicated. In its full form, the construction is Wenn + participle + Konjunktiv II + Konjunktiv II + participle.

It is worth mentioning that you may often see "mixed types" of the conditional, in which a missed opportunity in the past (expressed using the participle) is portrayed as still affecting the present. Take a look at the following sentence:

Also, wenn wir den Vertrag letzte Woche unterzeichnet hätten, wären wir in der Lage, mit unserer ursprünglichen Vereinbarung fortzufahren? So, if we had signed the contract last week, we would be in a position to proceed with our original agreement? Caption 36-37, Berufsleben: Probleme mit Mitarbeitern

Further Learning For more information on the different types of conditional sentences, take a look at this helpful website. Whenever you see key words like hätte, wäre, or würde on Yabla German, note the subjunctive mood and try to identify which type of conditional sentence it might be related to.

You are probably very familiar with the noun die Zeit, usually translated as "time," but may not know that there is also a preposition with the same spelling: zeit. We covered this to some extent in a previous lesson, but it's time for an in-depth recap. There is some potential confusion with expressions that use the noun die Zeit with a genitive modifier that we should look at first:

As you can see, the preposition zeit means, in a general way, "during the whole course of," so the literal translation "during the whole course of their lives" is more simply translated as "all their lives." The genitive form thus renders this standard expression in the following forms:

— zeit meines Lebens ("all of my life")

— zeit deines Lebens ("all of your life")

— zeit Ihres Lebens ("all of your life")

— zeit seines Lebens ("all of his life," or for neuter subjects like animals, "all of its life")

— zeit ihres Lebens ("all of her life" or "all of their lives")

— zeit unseres Lebens ("all of our lives")

— zeit eures Lebens ("all of your lives")

Luckily, the preposition zeit is not commonly spoken, and nearly always in the above context when used at all. Remember that if the definite article die is used, then it's referring to having a good time, whereas the lack of definite article will be a good indication of its use referring to the span of a lifetime.

There's another expression for "all of your life" that may also appear a bit odd to the non-native German speaker:

Da sammelte es sich die Taler hinein und war reich für seinen Lebtag. Then she gathered up the thalers and was rich for the rest of her life. Caption 35, Märchenstunde: Die Sterntaler

You can remember the meaning of Lebtag more easily if you think of it as "the rest of the days of your life." If you are curious as to why es is translated here as "she" and seinen as "her," you should read the Yabla German lesson "Possessive Gender Benders."

Further Learning Go to Yabla German to find other examples of how the noun die Zeit and the preposition zeit are used in real-world contexts, and read the full definition of the preposition zeit on Duden.

In a previous newsletter, we outlined the difference between wann, wenn, and als. This week, we'll take a look at wann and wenn in the context of the words listed above, which tend to be a bit confusing for beginners.

Wann is a question word, like was or wie. It is concerned with at what point in time something will happen, but not if it will happen.

Further Learning To review the types of conditional sentences in English (mentioned above), take a look at this website. A newsletter on creating conditional sentences in German is forthcoming, so it's a good way to prepare! When you watch videos on Yabla German, note how wenn, ob, and falls are translated. Consider whether the word used could be swapped out for one of the others, and why or why not.

Und letztendlich hab' ich dann eben versucht in Währungen zu handeln und in Rohstoffen und so weiter. And in the end I just tried to deal in currencies and in commodities and so on. Caption 10-11, Rhein-Main-TV aktuell: Börsen-Gewinnspiel

However, you may have also seen the construction sich um etwas handeln, which can be translated as "to be a case of," "to be a matter of," "to be about," "to be dealing with," or "to have to do with." Pay attention to how the order of the words in the phrase is altered to fit into the sentence constructions.

A "xenonym" is an external name for a geographical place, the people who live there or the language spoken there. For example, English speakers say "Germany" rather than Deutschland and "Munich" rather than München. The names of many countries in German are very similar to the English xenonyms. However, even if they sound almost the same, the spelling is often different. For example, we see in many names that a C converts to K (Canada is Kanada, Cameroon is Kamerun), a Z to an S (Zimbabwe is Simbabwe, Zambia is Sambia) or a V to a W (Slovakia is die Slowakei). Of course, this may not be the only difference.

Dabei haben die deutschen Titelverteidiger diese Woche eins zu zwei gegen Tschechienverloren. And the German title holders lost one to two against the Czech Republic this week. Caption 6-7, Fußball: U21-Nationalmannschaft

There is also a small group of countries with names ending in -land in German, which don't necessarily match up with those that have this ending in English.

Hm, in Griechenland ist es im Sommer sehr heiß. Hm, in Greece it is very hot in the summer. Caption 37, Jenny: Reiseziele

Diese da ist aus Russland und diese hier ist eine alte Polaroid-Kamera. This one here is from Russia and this one is an old Polaroid camera. Caption 23, Drei Leute: beim Kofferpacken

Further Learning Check out this very thorough list of country names and get memorizing! Concentrate on the country names that sound less like the English versions or are easily confusable. On Yabla German you can see which require a definite article (such as die Slowakei above), as detailed in our previous newsletter, or which require one in English but not in German (such as Tschechien).

The noun die Bilanz sounds similar to the English word "balance" and is often translated thus, in the sense of a "financial balance" or a "balance sheet," as opposed to getting dizzy and losing your balance, which is das Gleichgewicht. You might occasionally run into the phrase Bilanz ziehen, which sounds a bit odd if you were to translate it literally as "pull balance." Its real meaning becomes clearer when we see the phrase used in some different contexts:

Although I had long assumed—incorrectly—that "to strike a balance" had to do with physical balancing (die Gleichgewicht), in fact the Oxford English Dictionary defines the phrase as meaning "to determine the exact difference, if any, between the two sides of an account," thus using the same sense of "balance" as the German die Bilanz. As with the English phrase, the German phrase too is probably used more often in a metaphorical sense.

The noun die Bilanz without the verb ziehen is also commonly translated thus:

I still sometimes find it difficult, despite speaking German for decades, to distinguish between the two nouns die Gelegenheit and die Angelegenheit. In all fairness, though, the fact that prefixes like an-, be-, ver-, ent-, etc. radically alter the meanings of German words is part of what makes German difficult for English speakers.

Let's start by stripping Gelegenheit of its -heit suffix, leaving us with the adverb/adjective gelegen:

DieGelegenheit is almost always translated as "opportunity," except when preceded with the preposition bei, when it's usually translated as "occasion." On a more humorous note, just as "the facilities" are used in English as a polite euphemism for the toilet, so too is die Gelegenheit an old-fashioned euphemism in German for das WC. A perhaps overly polite way to ask where the toilet is would be Wo ist hier die Gelegenheit, bitte?

Die Angelegenheit is, on the other hand, literally a different matter altogether:

Die Königin war fuchsteufelswild und beschloss, die Angelegenheit jetzt selbst in die Hand zu nehmen. The Queen was angry and decided to take the matter into her own hands now. Captions 55-56, Märchen, Sagenhaft: Schneewittchen